Catfish feeding question

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ikkie78

ikkie78

Candiru
MFK Member
Jan 28, 2010
103
1
48
Neenah, WI USA
Sorry if this is a dumb question that has been talked about before here but I did a search and couldn't find anything.

I know i've seen alot of people feed their cats chunks of fish such as talapia...but I was just curious if you could feed them native fresh caught fish (filleted of course not alive)...I know native cats wouldn't have an issue and thats what they eat in the wild but wasn't sure if there would be any issues with feeding natives to other catfish.

Again sorry if this has been asked before but I could not find an answer when I searched for it.
 
Could carry parasites and disease. Recommend freezing first, but still feel safer with store bought market foods
 
Yeah good point that makes sense...I'll stick with store bought then. Thanks!
 
It's a good question and don't be shy asking away all you want to know. This is what the forum is for. Unless you ask something that has been asked to death, like "What tank do I need for an RTC?" or "What can I house in my 120 gal?".

I feed wildlife I catch to my fish. Fish, crustaceans, frogs I freeze to kill off parasites. Sometimes I'd even give them a brief boil to kill bacteria too. I don't fillet anything. Just cut in pieces if too large. Snakes, lizards, and insects I give as is, no freeze, no boil.

Earthworms are obviously fine as they are. If the dirt/sand inside of them pollutes your tank, one can let them crawl around in wet paper clippings for a day or two. They will empty out themselves.

Marine fish have a far smaller chance to transfer a parasite or a bacteria to your f/w pet but I still freeze them too. Never boil.

One can microwave/bake them too to kill all parasites and bacteria; just figure out the timer and the power level of the m/w oven.
 
thebiggerthebetter said:
It's a good question and don't be shy asking away all you want to know. This is what the forum is for. Unless you ask something that has been asked to death, like "What tank do I need for an RTC?" or "What can I house in my 120 gal?".

I feed wildlife I catch to my fish. Fish, crustaceans, frogs I freeze to kill off parasites. Sometimes I'd even give them a brief boil to kill bacteria too. I don't fillet anything. Just cut in pieces if too large. Snakes, lizards, and insects I give as is, no freeze, no boil.

Earthworms are obviously fine as they are. If the dirt/sand inside of them pollutes your tank, one can let them crawl around in wet paper clippings for a day or two. They will empty out themselves.

Marine fish have a far smaller chance to transfer a parasite or a bacteria to your f/w pet but I still freeze them too. Never boil.

One can microwave/bake them too to kill all parasites and bacteria; just figure out the timer and the power level of the m/w oven.
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Thanks for the info...glad to hear you've had success with it. And yeah, usually i'm not shy about asking questions just used to other forums where everyone thinks their knowledge is secret and they get pissed when you ask a noobie question...haha...Glad its not like that here...everyone is very helpful!

I'm planning on mainly feeding pellets if they will take them but i'd like to vary the diet as much as possible as well.
 
Try to err on the safe side.

Cats are carnivorous (lots), omnivorous (lots), and herbivorous (few). The first kind are usually harder to get to take pellets and the second kind is usually much easier. The kind of pellet plays a huge role too.

One thing that's good to keep in mind is that tropical catfish find relatively little fat in their wild diet, unlike their temperate and cold water cousins. Usually, tropical catfish develop digestive problems rather soon if kept on a diet of fatty local fish from temperate waters. As a diversification/snack/treat, it's fine. I would not make a fatty fish a staple for my tropical catfishes. It should be just a rather small fraction of their diet. They are designed to eat (mainly) lean.

This goes for both fleshy foods/fish (both f/w and marine) and pellets, and both predators and omnivores.
 
Good points viktor, but what you forgot to mention is that Saltwater fish of course have a lot more fat than FW fish. Fish caught in NA freshwater should not be too fatty to feed IMO, but you should watch out with saltwater fish like salmon or herring.
 
This is something I find confusing. Salmon of course are high in fat (34%), while Cod/Pollock are very low in fat (5-9%.) My menu for fish therefore excludes salmon, but includes Cod and Pollock.

Catfish on the other hand (the ones they sell raw at US food stores) are fairly high in fat 20-30%+.

Is this due to catfish being farmed and raised to be 'fatty' (like cows) or do they have a genetic tendency to extract and hold fat from their normal diet.

It could be that we normally get cod/pollock filets which have been trimmed of fat, while the catfish isn't, but I wasn't sure if that was the reason.
 
I'm taking a guess that most of the catfish sold in stores are farm raised and probably raised to be fatty like you said...this is only a guess but I know there seems to be a big difference when eating fresh caught and farm raised catfish.
 
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